Vancouver foodies and the city’s farting-through-silk crowd who think nothing of dropping more on a single meal than some of their fellow citizens earn in a month have been as puffed up as pavlovas this month since Maclean’s magazine named one city eatery as — drum roll please — Canada’s “Restaurant of the Year.”

Much to the relief, no doubt, of its investors, Hawksworth sautéed to the top of Canadian gourmet greatness with a menu that includes caramelized squid, parsnip velouté and sea-urchin spaghetti.

Can’t say I’ve ever tried “caramelized squid” — and until now I’ve never thought those words could be used in the same sentence. All I’ll say is it’s a good thing for chef David Hawksworth and his crew that Canada’s café champions isn’t being selected by six-year-olds. If you think the country’s top food critics are picky about food, they got nothing on some kid named Sally in Grade 1, who’s been sending meals back to the kitchen since before she could spin “passghetti” on her fork.

Apart from Hawksworth, Maclean’s listed seven other B.C. restaurants among Canada’s top 50 chow halls, including Bao Bei, Maenam, La Quercia, Cioppino’s, Blue Water Café and L’Abattoir in Vancouver and Araxi in Whistler.

Sorry, Art’s Place in Kerrisdale. You didn’t make the cut, although you’ll always be No. 1 in my slowly congesting heart for your chips-and-eggs breakfast special. If you want to name the dish after me, I won’t say no.

I really should get out more because not only have I never been to any of B.C.’s top restaurants, with one exception, I’ve never even heard of them. Despite that, as a one-time teenage cook who plied his trade in several reasonably decent city joints, it’s good to see Vancouver somewhat dominating the Maclean’s restaurant rankings. Eight out of 50 ain’t bad, given our population.

Montreal had nine on the list, which is actually a lousy finish, given that the city is full of French chefs who likely didn’t even break a sweat over their steamers to get those results. And given it’s Montreal, I bet bribes were involved.

Toronto had 10 restaurants on the list, but only because Maclean’s is based there and everyone from TO thinks they’re the best at everything. Calgary had five on the list, virtually all devoted to various forms of charred beef, while Edmonton only had two, which might not have seemed that bad for Edmonton, except so did Winnipeg, and one of theirs was a pizzeria. Surprisingly, Quebec City also only had two restaurants on the list. One of its chefs must have said something awfully rude about one of the critic’s mothers during a heated argument about whether the soufflé had fallen or was “supposed to look like that.”

Vancouver shouldn’t let its Maclean’s success go to its head, having become overly boastful of late, food-wise, even making wild claims of “world class” status since city hall allowed street-food vendors to expand their bills of fare beyond hotdogs and chestnuts to modern, sophisticated dishes such as burritos and grilled-cheese sandwiches.

Shortly before the Maclean’s list came out, Britain’s Restaurant magazine, which produces the world’s most-recognized list of the planet’s top restaurants, published its results.

Not one Vancouver restaurant made the top-100 list. And if that hasn’t got you sobbing in your salmon, neither did any Canadian restaurant. How fair is that after everything Canada did for the Brits in the war? And what do they know about food, any way? Have you every heard of a TV cooking show called the English Chef?

A bunch of New York restaurants made the grade, as well as ones in London, Spain, even Brazil, and Paris, of course, although they were kept out the top 10, likely because everyone’s so sick of all the French bragging over the decades about their sauces.

The world’s top restaurant, for the second year in a row, was Noma, in Copenhagen, which is at the top of food fashion right now because of the interesting things Noma’s chef, practising something called “Nordic cuisine,” can do with twigs, raw fish bits and moss.

Noma is a funny name for a restaurant because it’s also the word for a gangrenous disease whose victim’s faces rot away around their mouths. Do not Google it, I beg you, unless you want to upchuck your twigs and moss.

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